“My father miraculously recovered after a near-fatal accident”

My father, Daniel Lee, was mending a punctured car tyre by the roadside when he was knocked down by another vehicle.

He was just 36 years old in 1983.

How would Mum care for a bedridden husband while raising three young children alone?

He lay there injured and helpless for over an hour, before an ambulance finally arrived. By the time he was rushed to the hospital, his condition was critical.

The doctors delivered heartbreaking news to my mother: The chances of him surviving were slim. Even if he did pull through, he was likely to spend the rest of his life bedridden.

My mother was overwhelmed with fear and uncertainty.

How would she care for a bedridden husband while raising three young children alone?

The author celebrating his first birthday with his parents and elder brother Gaius. Their younger brother Paul was not yet born. The author’s father met with the car accident two years after this photo was taken.

I was only three years old at the time. My brothers were six and one. 

The image of my father lying in the hospital bed, body encased in casts, is etched in my memory, even after all these years.

My father regained consciousness, but could not accept the doctor’s prognosis that he would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

Our church pastor, Pastor James Hing, came to the hospital and prayed for my father.

Many others from our church joined in prayer as well, believing that Jesus has the power to heal – even though the doctors had reached the limits of medical science, even though all hope seemed lost.

During those darkest moments, my father also prayed boldly to God. He had only become a Christian four years earlier. 

Miraculously, my father regained his strength – slowly at first, but steadily.

Celebrating the author’s fifth birthday in 1985 – two years after the accident – and his father’s recovery.

From being completely immobilised, he started sitting up, then standing, and finally walking.

The Lee brothers were in primary school when this photo was taken in the late 1980s.

The doctors, unable to explain his sudden recovery, recorded it in their reports as a “miracle”.

Then the unexplainable happened.

My father began to recover. Slowly, but surely, strength returned to his body.

From being completely immobilised, he progressed to sitting up, then standing, and eventually walking. After just one month in the hospital, he was discharged — a miracle, even by the doctors’ standards.

Though my father could no longer exercise rigorously nor carry heavy things after the accident, he could still work and function normally to fulfil his daily needs.

The accident as a catalyst of change

My father’s miraculous recovery deepened his faith.

He left his job in the business world and, together with my mother, became a private tutor.

He also served faithfully in the church – first as an interpreter, then as an elder.

Pastor Adam Hing (left) and Daniel Lee on a mission trip in 2006.

Over the next three decades, he dedicated himself to travelling around Asia, offering help and hope to communities by sharing his testimony of healing and the love of Christ.

The accident that could have taken his life became the catalyst for a deeper belief in God.

It affirmed to him, and our family, that nothing is impossible for God.

We, as a family, witnessed firsthand the hand of God through my father’s recovery, and it strengthened our own faith, too.

40 years later

More than 40 years have passed since the accident that changed our lives.

The accident that could have taken his life became the catalyst for a deeper belief in God.

My father is still with us – healthy and active. 

Every morning, he prays for our family and the needs of those around him.

He has seen his children grow into adulthood, finish their education, find stable jobs, and start families of their own.

Having been shaped by the influence of our father and mother, my brothers and I followed in our parents’ footsteps by becoming educators, a profession that could shape the lives of others positively. 

“My parents’ siblings witnessed my father’s miraculous healing. Some of them accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord,” said the author, pictured on his wedding day, with his extended family.

Just recently, the author’s parents celebrated their 49^th wedding anniversary.

God says in Exodus 15:26: “I am the Lord who heals you.”

Our family’s story is a living reminder that even in the darkest moments, God’s power and love is at work.

We have seen His faithfulness through this and other trials, and we have seen how when God blesses a person, others around are blessed, too.